DIY Probate - is it feasible?

https://services.courts.ie/taking-action/probate.

Take a look at the courts service probate page

Just been through this. My advice, get a solicitor. His or her fees are a small drop in the ocean and well worth it for something like this.

Is it feasible? Well, yes, but like building your own house it's feasible if you know all the steps and what you need to do and in what order.

Will depend on whether someone has the right POA.

Friend of mine did it himself after the solicitor jerked him around. It was similar to yourself, a house and some savings so a relatively simple job. However if you can find a decent solicitor, best to go with them. I'd ask for recommendations here

Are solicitors legally required to advise (in writing) of their charges and to further advise if there are any changes or additional costs?

Also, if a will is held with solicitor X can the executors go to a different solicitor to process the will and seek probate?

Is it a relatively straightforward process to do Probate ourselves & should it be done before or after sale of the house?

Doing a probate application yourself is a pain, but it's doable. How painful depends on how comfortable you are with bureaucratic procedures, how much attention you pay to what the probate office staff tell you and how little attention you pay to what people in the pub tell you. Also on how neatly your mother has managed and documented her affairs.

The house is in your mother's name. You can't sell it until you have obtained a grant of probate empowering you to administer her estate.

(Mrs O'Bumble suggests above that you may be able to sell it if you have a valid power of attorney, granted by your mother, enabling you to manage her affairs. This is relevant only to a sale of the house while she is alive. Once she dies, any power of attorney she may have granted you will lapse.)

Would transferring the property now have tax implications, though?

+1 to all of the above. I did a DIY probate for an estate similar to the OP's mother - one property and some savings accounts.

As poster Peregrinus said in post #12 above, it is a bit of a pain because there is a fair bit of legwork, both in terms of administration and physical legwork. You will have to visit the probate office to meet one of their officials and you will have to go to the Revenue office in Dublin Castle and an office of the courts on the north quays. That's assuming the OP's mother lives in Dublin.

The big motivation for me doing it was because a solicitor 'friend' of the family offered to do it for an exhorbitant fee which (as was pointed out above) was based on a % of the value of the estate. Given that the property was in a prime location in south Dublin, I wasn't prepared to let the value of the property determine the fees so I did the probate myself and saved a substantial four figure sum.

You or someone who helps you will need to be reasonably skilled in MS Word (or equivalent) because you will have to write letters to banks, credit unions, insurance companies, utilities etc. and you will need a few spreadsheets to keep track of the money. But be aware that whoever is proposed as the lead executor will have to go to the probate office alone to discuss the estate and the process of probate when they ask you to come in for a face to face with one of the officials.